Data fuels marketing, but it’s tough to track and even harder to make sense of. Businesses juggle measuring customer behavior, respecting privacy, and personalizing experiences—all while marketers try to prove their campaigns are worth the investment. Analytics and attribution tools help by showing what’s working, where to focus, and how to improve.
Picking the right attribution platform means looking at what your business needs and what the vendor offers. Internally, things like your sales cycle and how online and offline data connect help ensure a good fit. On the vendor side, look for easy integrations, customization options, and solid privacy protections.
Here are some key considerations for choosing and implementing the right platform.
Customization options. Look for solutions offering flexible attribution models, like linear, time decay, or custom weightings. Ensure reporting dashboards and segmentation options can be tailored to your KPIs and audiences.
“A one-size-fits-all won’t work,” said Eric Beane, chief analytics and data officer at VML. “So there needs to be flexible attribution modeling that you can customize based on your inputs and your marketing plans and objectives.”
The sales cycle length. Short cycles may benefit from last-click or first-touch attribution, while longer cycles may require multitouch or data-driven models.
The customer journey. Organizations should map all customer touchpoints to verify the platform tracks and attributes every interaction accurately and can handle complex journeys involving multiple channels.
“Start with the channels you can control, like your website or any offline data you may have, then start to add in data from walled gardens,” said Beane.
Campaign objectives. Ensure the platform supports marketing goals, whether for brand awareness, lead generation, or conversion optimization. Look for features like funnel analysis or predictive modeling to align with priorities.
“It’s really important to take all of this data and understand how to use it to do some more predictive analytics and forecasting,” said Beane.
Offline and online integration. If your business uses both online and offline channels, select a platform that seamlessly integrates these data points and provides a unified view of customer behavior across in-store, call center, email, social media, and website interactions.
Integration capabilities. Confirm the platform integrates with key tools in your marketing stack, including customer relationship management (CRM) systems, web analytics, ad platforms, and social media tools. Marketers must also evaluate whether integrations are native or require additional development effort.
Security and compliance. Platforms must adhere to data protection regulations, especially US privacy laws. Marketers should assess the vendor’s data encryption, storage, and user privacy practices, especially regarding AI, said Beane.
“Once I bring my data into your platform, I want to make sure there's guarantees that my data is not going to be used to train an AI that's going to be utilized for other clients in your platform,” he said.
This was originally featured in the EMARKETER Daily newsletter. For more marketing insights, statistics, and trends, subscribe here.